Planting a Tree for Arbor Day

My family joined the hundred or so volunteers who planted trees in Aliso Viejo Community Park on Friday afternoon during the Arbor Day celebration.  My daughter Charlotte and my husband, Gary, got to personally plant one of the 25 trees donated by Mission Landscape Services and O'Connell Landscape Maintenance.

But why celebrate Arbor Day?  Arbor Day was founded more than 135 years ago by J. Sterling Morton, who said one of my favorite things: "Each generation takes the earth as trustees."  His hope when creating the holiday was to help the environment and do something practical—since trees provide windbreaks for crops, keep soil in place and provide shade.

Arbor Day is just as relevant today as it was when Morton first encouraged his neighbors in Nebraska to plant as many trees as possible to change the state's landscape from barren to tree-covered. This planting campaign helped protect the crops being grown in the area.

Need more reasons to plant a tree?  Treelink.org has 29 reasons why we should plant trees. Here are just a few:

• Helps recharge ground water and sustains stream flow.
• Properly placed screens of trees and shrubs significantly decrease noise pollution along busy thoroughfares and intersections.
• Depending on location, species, size and condition, shade from trees can reduce utility bills for air conditioning in residential and commercial buildings by 15 percent to 50 percent. Trees, through their shade and transpiration, provide natural low-tech cooling, which means less need to build additional dams, power plants and nuclear generators.
• Windbreaks around homes can be shields against wind and snow,  and heating costs can be reduced by as much as 30 percent.
• Shade from trees cools hot streets and parking lots. Cities are "heat islands" that are 5-9 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. And cities spread each year.
• Trees and shrubs properly placed and cared for on a residential or commercial lot can significantly increase property values.
• Trees along rivers, streams and lakes reduce water temperatures by their shade, prevent or reduce bank erosion and silt, and provide hiding places for improving fisheries habitat.
• Trees add beauty and grace to any community setting. They make life more enjoyable, peaceful and relaxing and offer a rich inheritance to future generations.

That last reason is most certainly true. My daughter has already mentioned visiting the tree that she and her father planted. It is something that will be part of our family for as long as we live in Aliso Viejo.  

Thank you to the Aliso Viejo Community Association for allowing my family and others to participate in this memorable holiday, and we look forward to getting to plant more trees in the future.

If you want to learn more about Arbor Day, the benefit of caring for and planting more trees or trees in general, please visit the Arbor Day Foundation.